Tag Archives: salsa

What We Did This Week To Prep 10/19/12

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We started off the week making salsa. After picking all the remaining tomatoes from our garden (red and green), digging up a couple of onions, and picking the last of the cucumbers (because they were there), we set to work cutting everything up. Last year was our first salsa making experience and though it came out pretty good, I wanted to try a new recipe this year. A couple of months ago I had seen a post on The Homestead Fritz – How To Make Great Salsa; there he mentioned that his coworkers described it as, “the best salsa they have ever eaten.” With that recommendation, I decided we’d give it a try. With all six of us cutting stuff up: tomatoes, onions, pepper, jalepenos, garlic, cilantro, and cucumbers (again because we had them, figured it’d make it more chunky) the process went fairly quickly. After everything was mixed together and cooked up, Sarah and I spooned the salsa into the canning jars (we didn’t have pint size so we used quart jars — but with the size of our family those will go quickly). Since Fritz didn’t mention it, we weren’t sure how much it’d make. We followed his recipe (our only addition was the extra cup of cucumbers) and we came out with three quarts of salsa, plus one 1/2 pint jar (that we gave as a gift to friends). Next year we’ll double it (or even triple, we like salsa), and use the pint size jars so we can share more with friends and neighbors.

My good friend, and fellow prepper, Mike recently gave us the book, So Easy To Preserve put out by the Cooperative Extension of The University of Georgia. Since we have very limited canning experience (blackberry jam and salsa last year) it came in handy reminding us of the steps involved in the water bath method. It’s a good reference book that thoroughly covers: canning, pickling, jellies, freezing, and drying.

Inadvertently, you could also call it busy or lazy, we had a small test of our store what your eat (SWYE) food storage. We normally shop every two weeks. Well life got busy, we missed a shopping trip, and we went a full month without grocery shopping. It’s interesting that with our food storage we really didn’t notice it all that much. Sure we were missing the items that have shorter shelf lives: fresh fruit, most fresh vegetables (though we were able to add some from our garden), and milk. Since we’re not big milk drinkers we’d just mix up some of the powdered stuff when we needed to add it to a recipe. Another item we would have been out of is eggs, but we have a local farm source that we get them from regularly so we didn’t go without. It was interesting how uninterrupted our daily food supply was; between our SWYE pantry and our deep freezer we had plenty. It’s nice to know that if we HAD to go that long it wouldn’t be an issue at all; that alone gives us a certain feeling of safety and confidence.

I’m happy to announce our fourth (and most likely final) regular blog contributor, Nick. Nick is a general contractor and a prepper who specializes in “Sustainable Improvements, Repairs, and Installations“. He will be posting the fourth Wednesday of each month (starting next week, October 24th), focusing on what we can do to make our homes more sustainable and keep them in good repair — from a prepper perspective. I’ve now completed one of my goals for my second year of blogging, to have a guest contributor for each week:

  • Week 1 – Rural Relations with Josh
  • Week 2 – Sarah’s View
  • Week 3 – Momma Bear
  • Week 4 – Nick

These four share really good, and varied, perspectives–different than I’m able to provide–that I believe will add value to both my blog and the prepper community. For more information about each of them, and a list of the posts they’ve written, there’s a link to Guest Contributors in the top right hand portion of the Home page.

Finally, I want to congratulate two of my closest prepper friends on additions to their families. From our prepper coffee group, both Mike and Rick had newborn sons this month! They’re both great dads who I know will raise their kids up to be “properly” educated, self-sufficient, and independent.

What did you do?

 

What I Did This Week To Prep 11/11/11

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Chanse, Ryan, Sarah, & Emily with green tomato salsa

We got our green tomato salsa made and canned this week. From our garden we added tomatoes (some red, mostly green), two onions, and three jalapenos. We combined them with additional peppers (red, yellow, more jalapeno, and Hatch chili), garlic, lime juice, cilantro and other spices (here is the green tomato salsa recipe – next time I’ll leave out the sugar). We ended up with six quart jars (including two hotter ones with habaneros added). We waited several days and opened a jar (allowing for the flavors to blend), and it was really good – and gone in no time. It was interesting how you could taste so many different flavors in each bite. This will definitely be an annual tradition.

As described last week (What I Did This Week to Prep-11/4/11), I determined that the circuit breaker between the inverter and battery bank had failed and the batteries had not recharged before the last test. So I removed it, connected the wires, and it was time to test the battery bank again. This time I ensured that the batteries were fully charged (12.70 volts).

Goals (take 2): Power two lamps to light the living room / kitchen area (each with two CFL bulbs), power a 29 inch TV, DVD player, and use the microwave for limited cooking.

Outcome (better than expected): No issues or problems at all! We powered the lamps, TV and DVD player for six hours, ran the microwave for 10 minutes – and the batteries only went down to 12.35 volts. Based on this test, I believe that if we conservatively used power for about four to six hours a night we could run the battery bank, roughly, for a full week before it had to be recharged. Then (and this is the next thing that needs tested), I believe I can use the generator (with one tank of gas) to recharge the battery bank, and then run the batteries for another week. I think this test has tentatively shown that with our gasoline stored we could maintain a usable amount of power for over six weeks. Also since Sarah and Ryan helped me with both tests, they know what needs to be done and can do it if I’m not here.

The last thing, though it wasn’t an emergency by any means, was that I used my Bug Out Bag (BOB). Chanse (Ryan’s best friend) invited us to his football game. Sarah got there at the beginning of the game and I met her, just after half-time, when I got off work. Driving to the game, as I went by the time/temperature clock (41 degrees), I realized I hadn’t thought to pack any warm clothes and all I had was my light jacket. Then I remembered the BOB I have in my car (we keep one in each of our vehicles) and the problem was solved. I had a warm fleece, Gor-Tex jacket, stocking cap, warm gloves, and a wool blanket (I could have even put on my insulated boots and thermal underwear if I had chosen). Needless to say, I was warm and comfortable (and prepared) for the game.

What did you do?

(Monday: ‘Course It’ll Always Be There)

(10/5/11)